Accelerators in Research

The Energy
Transformer

In particle collisions the
energy of the colliding particles can be
transformed to mass.

In basic research accelerators
are often used as energy transformers. In
accelerators, charged particles are accelerated to
high energy (high speed) by electric fields. In
particle collisions, more or all the available energy
can be transformed into other particles or into
X-rays. Einstein's formula E = mc2,
describing that energy and mass are equivalent
entities, describes in mathematical terms how energy
is transformed. With more powerful accelerators and
higher collision energies more massive and sometimes
new particles can be discovered.